Edelweiss Part 26

He hung about so long before leaving the house, and, after having gone, would come back two and three times, as if he had forgotten something.

He could not bear to go away with feelings in his heart which made him almost a stranger to himself. He hoped Annele would try to detain him, or would at least speak a kind word to restore him to himself. In his mother's lifetime, he never started on a long journey without her giving him a piece of bread from the cupboard to save him from temptation, as she said, while a better safeguard than any loaf was the kind word spoken from her heart. Now he had to go as if neither the house nor himself were his own. Therefore it was that he trifled away so much time without being able to tell what he wanted. There is no virtue in a thing asked for; the true blessing lies only in a free gift, voluntarily--almost unconsciously--offered and received.

Long before the working hours were over, Lenz would often be sitting at Pilgrim's, and Annele with her parents. The whole house seemed out of joint. Lenz said not a word to Pilgrim of the grief that was inwardly consuming him, while Annele poured her complaints into unsympathizing ears. Her parents appeared entirely absorbed in their own affairs.

Lenz spent much time, too, at Faller's, where he was almost happier than at Pilgrim's. The grateful couple greeted him with joy and respect, and honored him like the Lenz of former days. At home he had long ceased to be anybody.

Faller and his wife lived harmoniously together, each thoroughly convinced that the other was the most admirable being in the world. If they only could be once out of debt, and have a little money over, they would astonish the world. As it was, they toiled and sc.r.a.ped, and were always cheerful. Faller enlivened himself and his wife, as he sat at work over the machinery of his big clocks,--for he was not a sufficiently skilful workman to undertake the more delicate timepieces,--with tales of his barrack life, and the different plays he and his comrades enacted in varied and gorgeous costumes. Mrs. Faller proved a most gracious public. In her loving eyes her husband was actually clothed with the royal mantles, the crowns, and the diamonds he so vividly described. How dismal seemed Lenz's own life in comparison! Ever darker and darker grew the shadows in his soul. His every experience was changed into bitterness and sorrow.

When he was present, as he sometimes could not help being, at the meetings and rehearsals of the Liederkranz, and sang the songs of love, of longing, of blissful rapture, his heart within him cried: Is this true? is it possible? were any human beings ever so happy, so blessed?

Yet you yourself were so once. He called for soberer, sadder songs, and startled his comrades by the pathos of his voice, which sounded like the wail of a breaking heart. Whereas in former days he could never get singing enough, now he soon tired of it, and wanted to stop, or took offence at a word, and the next moment was as hasty in begging his comrade's forgiveness, when there was nothing to forgive.

He recovered his self-possession at times, and, trying to believe that the sole cause of his discontent was want of industry, would labor diligently at his old tasks; but no blessing crowned his toil. The day often found him undoing what he had spent half the night in completing.

His hand was unsteady. Even his father's file, which had been repointed, and whose touch had never failed to quiet him, lost its efficacy. The machinery which had required a whole day to make and put together he would pull to pieces in a fit of discontent, only to find that it had been good work, perfectly adjusted, but seeming discordant because of the discord within him.

He often put his hand to his head, as if trying to recall something which had escaped him. The consciousness--if we may so express it--had vanished out of his work,--that power by virtue of which many things had seemed to do themselves with no effort of his will. Indignant at his own inertness, he compelled himself to something like repose and interest in his work. If you lose that, he reasoned with himself, all is lost. You were once happy with only your art, you must learn again to find in that your sole happiness. You can listen to a piece of music when other noises are going on, you can distinguish the one sound from the others; so here you must be absorbed in your own work, and not heed the tumult about you. If you insist on not hearing it, you will not hear it. Let your will but be resolute.

Lenz really succeeded in settling down to his work again quietly and methodically. Only one thing he missed,--one little sentence that Annele might have spoken: "Thank Heaven you are once more content to be at home!" He had thought he could do without such encouragement, but he could not. It was often on Annele's lips, only her pride kept it back.

Why should I praise him for doing his duty? it said. Now is the time for having our hotel. He works best when no one is about to watch him; with him at his work-bench and me in the public room all would be well.

Lenz worked twice as hard as he used to to accomplish the same amount.

Never before had he known that work was wearisome, but now the evenings found him tired and spent. Yet he allowed himself no respite. All might be lost, all hope of having a home again, if he ventured to leave his house or his bench.

For weeks he did not enter the village, while Annele was much with her parents.

A fatality at length forced him from home. Pilgrim fell dangerously ill, and night after night Lenz sat by his bedside. A painful duty it was, for not even this act of friendship escaped the poison of Annele's tongue. "Your attentions to Pilgrim," she said, "are only a cloak for your lazy, slipshod ways. You flatter yourself you have been doing something in the world, while you have been doing nothing and are nothing. You are a regular do-little."

His breath came short as she spoke, and there fell a stone upon his heart, which nevermore departed, but lay there like a dead weight.

"You will tell me next that I ill-treated my mother; that is the only unjust taunt you have not cast at me."

"You did; I know you did. Your cousin Toni, who went to America, has told us a thousand times that you were the greatest hypocrite in the world, and that he often and often had to make peace between your mother and you."

"You only say that to drive me mad again, but I care nothing for your words. Why do you choose a man in America for your witness? Why not some one here? You only want to goad me. Good night."

He pa.s.sed the night with Pilgrim, who was now recovering, and of course happy in the feeling of returning health. Not wishing to sadden him, Lenz listened patiently to his accounts of the experiences his illness had brought him. "I came to understand how a bird can keep forever twittering on two notes. There is a state between sleeping and waking in which one tone is all-sufficient. For four weeks only a couple of words have been running in my head. Man has no wings beside his two lungs, and with one lung I can eat potatoes for seventy-seven years. If I had been a bird, I should have kept piping: One lung, two lungs, two lungs, one lung, just like a hedge-sparrow."

Few were the tones ringing in Lenz's heart, but they were too sad for any human ear.

"The Bible," continued Pilgrim, cheerily, "has been my helper again, and has firmly decided me to live a single life. There it is plainly said that in the beginning man was alone upon the earth, woman was never alone; from which it follows that man is able to live by himself."

Lenz smiled, but the words smote him.

Sad, pale, and worn with watching, he went home the next morning to his work, and said, when the children met him at the door, "I hardly knew I had any children."

"Of course not; you forget them, like everything else," replied Annele.

He once more felt the stab at his heart, but it scarcely pained him now.

"Mother, dear mother!" he cried, gazing at his mother's picture, "you too she has outraged. Can you not speak? Do not punish her,--pray G.o.d not to punish her! The penalty would fall on my head and on my poor children! Help me, dear mother; testify for me, that she may cease to wring my heart! Help me, dear mother! You know what I am."

"A great strong man like you begging! I won't listen to your nonsense,"

said Annele, going into the kitchen, and taking the two children with her.

The cord was strained almost to breaking.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE AXE IS LAID AT THE ROOT OF THE TREE, AND BREAD IS EATEN WITH TEARS.

On the sultry evening of a sultry day, the landlord, in an open wagon, drawn by his two bay horses, was returning from a drive to the city. He looked about him to the right and left in a strange way as he entered the village, and saluted with great affability. The wagon drew up before the door of the Lion. Gregory, who, in his postilion's uniform, but without his horn, had been driving, dismounted, and began to unharness the horses. Still the landlord sat motionless in the wagon, looking thoughtfully from the inn to the horses, and again from the horses back to the inn. At last, with a deep sigh, he descended, and stood on the ground. It was the last time he should so drive. All was as it had been, and only one other beside himself knew what a change was coming.

Wearily he dragged himself up the steps, at the top of which his wife was waiting for him. "How do matters stand?" she asked, softly.

"All has been arranged," answered the landlord, pushing by her into the public room, without entering the parlor first, as was his custom on returning home. He handed his hat and cane to the maid, and, sitting down with the guests who were present, ordered supper to be brought him at the public table. When it came, however, he appeared to have no relish for it.

The company did not break up till late into the night, and he remained sitting with the last. He spoke little, but his mere presence was compliment and entertainment enough.

His wife had gone to bed, and was sound asleep long before he retired to rest. Rest, indeed, he did not find. An invisible power drew the pillows from under his head. This bed, this house, everything, would to-morrow be no longer his! His thoughts lingered most lovingly about the carriage and the two bay horses. Suddenly the bays seemed to have entered the chamber; he rubbed his eyes; there they were, stretching their heads over the bed, and glaring at him with their great eyes; he felt their hot breath on his face. Recovering his self-possession, he comforted himself with the thought that he had, at least, borne himself like a man. He had said nothing to his wife, but let her have a quiet night's sleep. To-morrow morning would be soon enough for her to learn the news, even to-morrow after breakfast. Trials are easier to bear in the broad sunlight, after a night's sleep and a-good breakfast.

When the daylight came, the landlord was tired, and begged his wife not to wait for him, but to take her breakfast alone. At last he appeared, seemed to be in excellent appet.i.te, and, on his wife urging him to explain what arrangement had been made, finally confessed: "Wife, I have allowed you to have a quiet night and comfortable morning; now show yourself brave, and take whatever comes quietly and calmly. At this very hour my lawyer in the city is proclaiming me bankrupt."

The landlady sat for a time stiff and speechless. "Why did you not tell me last night?" she asked, at length.

"From kindness to you, that you might have a quiet night's rest."

"Kindness? You stupid blockhead! If you had told me last night, we might have sent off many an article that would stand us in stead for years to come. Now, in this broad daylight, it is too late. Here! here!

help! help!" she cried, breaking from her quiet conversational tone into frightful screams, and sinking, half fainting, in her chair. The maids from the kitchen, and Gregory, the postilion, came rushing in.

The landlady raised herself, and cried, in the most piteous tones: "You deceived me; you never told me you were near being bankrupt. On your head be all the sorrow and the shame. I am innocent! Unhappy woman that I am!"

It would now have been the landlord's turn to fall into a fainting fit, had not his strength of body and mind supported him. His spectacles fell of themselves from his forehead to his eyes, that he might plainly behold the farce that was acting before him. This woman, who had given him no peace till he, the successful baker and brewer, joined her brother in the clock business, and who, when his brother-in-law died, had almost compelled him to continue the business alone, although he had no proper understanding of it; this woman, who had been constantly goading him on to new enterprises, and knew his affairs almost better than he did himself,--this woman had now called in the common servants to bear witness that he alone was guilty, and that on him alone must fall the blame.

One moment revealed to the unhappy landlord the whole extent of his misery. Five and thirty years it stretched behind him, and forward--how far, none could tell. To save herself, to expose him, his wife had carried her hypocrisy to this extremity.

His gla.s.ses grew dim with moisture; he could see no more. Quietly he pa.s.sed his handkerchief first over them and then over his eyes. From that moment a rancor that never softened struck its roots into his heart; but his pride presented the same quiet, unruffled front.

"You have your own reasons for acting thus," he said, when the postilion and maids had left the room. "They are beyond my finding out.

I shall say no more upon the matter." And he kept his word. His wife might talk and lament as she would, she could not move him out of his silence. It almost entertained him to see what a fine face she could a.s.sume before the world. He grew to be almost the sage he had been taken for. It is wonderful what woman can do, he thought, as he watched his wife's man[oe]uvres. Practice certainly makes perfect.

The unwise world, however, did not accept the landlord's fall so patiently. Like a thunder-clap the report spread over mountain and valley, The landlord is bankrupt! Incredible! impossible! What can stand if the landlord of the Lion falls?

Even the golden lion on the sign seemed to protest against it, and creaked angrily on its supporting hinges. But auctioneers subdue even lions, and make no account of a coat of gilding. The sign was taken down. Most pitiable the lion looked with one eye hidden by the wall, and the other seeming to blink wearily, as if it, too, would fain close for grief and shame.

There was a crash in the village below, and there was a crash above on the Morgenhalde.

Lenz hurried down into the town, and back again to the inn. The landlord kept walking solemnly up and down the great public room, saying, with dignity: "This, too, must I bear like a man,"--like a man of honor, he had almost said.